1. Field of the Invention
The invention is directed to devices, systems, and methods of monitoring and controlling an infrastructure such as, but not limited to the supply and use of commercial, industrial or residential water, gas and/or electric, and, in particular, to devices, methods, and systems for monitoring and controlling a municipality and alerting a user to potential faults and actions required.
2. Background of the Invention
Municipalities administer and/or outsource numerous utility and safety systems within each municipality. Such systems are usually complex infrastructures and include but are not limited to water distribution, gas distribution, electricity distribution, waste management, traffic control, fire departments, police departments, and emergency response departments. Each of these systems needs to be monitored for use (authorized or unauthorized), faults, tampering, events, leaks, contamination, and/or other issues.
Often to obtain an understanding of the state of any one system, or for billing or repair purposes, personnel must be sent into the municipality to manually check for problems within the system. This is slow, labor-intensive process can lead to overlooked problems. Furthermore, preferred aspects of the system may only be evaluated irregularly or infrequently, thereby allowing a problem to go unchecked for long periods of time. For example, a leak in a water main may cost a water company a significant amount of money in lost water, energy usage, and chemical treatment, particularly if the leak is not discovered for a long period of time. Furthermore, a leak can lead to underground structural erosion.
Another problem and disadvantage associated with current systems is the lack of property rights sufficient to maintain a network of monitors and device controllers capable of creating a transmission infrastructure that can adapt to multiple monitors and controllers and form an information network for providing information about the system to the utility monitoring the network. For example, some networks require new poles or towers to be erected for placement of the communication devices or municipalities may have to rent space on a utility company's poles.
Furthermore, an issue in one system may cause an issue in another system. For example, a fire reported to the fire department may require the gas company to shut off gas flow to the vicinity of the fire and require the water company to redirect water or additional water pressure to the vicinity. However, current systems are not interoperable. Therefore, it is desirable to have a single system that can monitor different aspects of at least one municipality system continuously and communicate with several entities at the same time.